A gold dredge captain who appeared on Discovery’s “Bering Sea Gold” faces a federal lawsuit that claims it cost $1.6 million to recover his sunken landing craft from the Cordova harbor.
The 117-foot Sound Developer sank in 2009 to the frustration of Cordova officials, who say it leaked fuel and was littered with debris. Federal prosecutors sued owner John Mehelich Monday, court records show.
Mehelich bought the craft in December 2004 and allegedly claimed it was free of pollutants as it sat at the harbor’s H Dock. The civil complaint chronicles two years of work at public expense to raise and remove the ship.
“The vessel eventually became an unauthorized dump site for waste oil and other debris because (Mehelich) left the vessel unattended and unsecured,” attorneys wrote. “Further, the vessel’s two engines and two generators contained an unknown amount of oil.”
“The owner had been put on notice, and we were actively working to get him to come back to town and deal with it before it sank,” said Cathy Sherman, acting city manager at the time.
The 147-ton vessel sunk on Sherman’s first day on the job as acting city manager, she remembers. Resting at the bottom of the shallow harbor, about half of the ship could be seen at low tide. Divers found it hard to navigate the refrigerators and other debris found aboard, she said.
The final cost of the cleanup came to nearly $1.5 million for the cleanup itself, plus about $140,000 in Coast Guard costs. The National Pollution Funds Center made two payouts in the case, covering AMR’s total bill of more than $37,000 and about $3,000 to the City of Cordova to cover its cleanup costs.
“On August 15, 2013, the NPFC issued a bill of cost to defendant Mehelich for $1,657,085.53,” federal attorneys wrote. “The defendant has refused to pay the foregoing costs.”
image credit US Coast Guard
